By Karla Fetrow
Conditioned Brutality
Police brutality… We
hear about it all the time. It has
become the great expectation; if you are confronted by the police, surrender
your rights because he does not recognize them.
Of all the domestic violence offenders, the police place first on the
list. According to a report on The
Impact of Police-Perpetrated Domestic Violence, “The characteristics and skills
developed in training to produce competent officers are those that, when used
in an intimate relationship, make police officers the most dangerous abusers.
Police officers use
professional skills, police equipment, and the mobility of the job to keep
their partners under surveillance. They run license plates of her friends and
have access to information about anyone with whom she associates. They follow
in their squad cars, park their squads or unmarked cars outside the victim’s
home for hours on end. They install recording devices in the victim’s home or
on her telephone. They use binoculars to observe the victim’s activities from a
distance. These methods serve as a constant reminder to the victim that she is
always within the abuser’s reach. He comes to be seen as omniscient and omnipotent,
almost god-like.”
Many carry this sense of omniscience beyond the victims of partner
relationships. They choose their victims
from those who are vulnerable; people who frequent bars, teenagers hanging out
in malls, those too poor to legally fight back, women without partners,
minorities and people they just don’t like.
Because they are well acquainted with the courts and documentation of
evidence, an abusive policeman can commit his crimes against citizens with
impunity.
The two most common charges attached to the
revolving door system are, “resisting arrest” and “assault on a police
officer”. The curious part of this is
that in seven out of ten cases, there are no other charges involved. In other words, if a policeman walks up and
says, “let’s go, buddy,” it’s best to just comply because to question his
motives is to resist arrest. If you
become belligerent, it’s an assault on an officer. It makes no difference whether or not you
struck out at him. The abusive policeman
doesn’t need a reason for accosting you.
He only needs for you to show some form of hostility or resistance and
you will land in jail.
What Isn’t Talked
About
It gets scarier. There is another type of police brutality
that generally stays under wraps for a very long time before it ever begins to
surface; if it does. This brutality
remains so secretive only the combined efforts of the victims lend it any
credibility at all. This is the
policeman who rapes. Most women will not
report her attacker. She has already
been humiliated, undressed, forced behind bars and subjected to the whims and
caprice of her captors. She has no
reason to believe anyone will come to her defense.
On the day I stood
before a judge to plead guilty to one account of misconduct with a controlled substance,
a far more spectacular case was rocking the courtroom. Anthony Rollins, an ex-police officer,
entered a plea of “not guilty” to fourteen felony counts, most of them
involving rape or assault, and to six misdemeanor charges of official
misconduct. The investigation began in
April 2009, when the victims’ agency, “Standing Together Against Rape”, filed a
report that Rollins had sexually assaulted a woman while on duty. Rollins was placed on paid leave, while five
other victims came forth to say they had been raped. On July 15, 2009, Rollins was indicted,
arrested and suspended without pay.
In a telephone
interview later, Sgt. Derek Hsieh, president of the Anchorage police union,
said fellow officers are disappointed and worried that Rollins’ indictment will
affect the way they are perceived by the people they serve.
The problem is, this
group mentality of standing up for their own allows police misconduct to become
commonplace. It isn’t an isolated
incident. It is a behavior that hides
itself behind bars, behind the protective uniform of the badge, and only
occasionally receives attention. It is a
part of the ongoing machinery diligently churning out the sociopath society.
The Subtle Sociopath
While it’s true my
vacation land did not contain such blatant misuse of power, its undercurrents
of false accusations, assumptions of guilt and categorizing without examining
mitigating circumstances, still contribute to sociopath behavior. A sociopath might be very pleasant on the
outside, but will lie and manipulate for his own self-serving purposes. He might not actually break the law, but will
use it to serve his own ends.
While I was
incarcerated, I became very fond of our house mouse, our little orderly mother
who kept the pod running smoothly. Janice
had that type of soft, open face and studious expression you would expect from
a teacher or a counselor. She rarely
exercised her authority, allowing the other girls the run of the television and
their choice of obligatory chores, but when she did, her word was law. You did not clam the door or stand in your
room and shout. To do so would mean the
entire house would lose its privileges to the microwave and television. She was determined this was not going to
happen.
Only once did she try
to exercise her authority with me. She
wanted me to attend church with the other girls on Easter morning. I told her no. When she asked me why not, I told her, “I
take my spirituality very seriously. In
Mexico, I saw people die for their moral convictions. They were people of God. I am not so impressed with someone who stands
at a pulpit and lectures simply because it feels good.”
“Oh,” she said, and
that was the end of that, but the beginning of our friendship. I finally asked her one day how she ended up
in jail. “I stole,” she admitted
honestly, then added, “but I didn’t steal from people’s houses. I didn’t steal from regular folk. I stole from big chain stores. They have the insurance to cover it.”
I laughed. “You’re a revolutionary!”
I found it odd that
she continued to remain in the hole while other long-term inmates had moved
into houses with greater liberties. I
finally asked her about it. “They hate
me,” she said at first. Finding her a
very difficult person to hate, I told her maybe it was because she did her job
as the house mouse so well. “No,” she
said firmly. “They hate me.”
She paused a bit as
though debating whether or not to trust me, then said, “In February, I pushed a
girl into a snowbank. I don’t know why I
did it. She was making fun of me and I
got irritated. She was carrying her
property box at the time, going to one of the better houses. She stumbled backward into the snowbank, but
she wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t hit her.
Still, she told an officer about it.
Two days later, I was
charged with a major infraction, a B6, which is assault on a prisoner by
another prisoner.” The following week,
Janice was brought before the disciplinary board, which even the officers call
the kangaroo court. Without allowing her
to give her side, they found her guilty of the assault, and gave her thirty
days of segregation in the hole, suspending it for 180 days, provided she was
not given another write-up.
Janice planned to
appeal the write-up, but the next day, she was once again called before the
board. “I heard from three different
inmates that you were having relationships with a female officer,” said
Lieutenant Johnson, the board director.
“I need to know who this officer is.”
“I had no idea what
she was talking about,” said Janice, “and told her so.”
The lieutenant
persisted. “Whether the allegations can
be proven or not, we can still house you in the hole for the remainder of your
sentence, so you might just as well make things easier on yourself.”
Again Janice told her
she had no idea what the lieutenant was talking about. After returning to her room, she filed an
appeal, stating the allegations had no basis in fact. The next day, the paperwork was returned to
her with “denied” stamped on it. In the
denial, it was claimed they had a video clip and a recorded phone call as
evidence that Janice had been with a female officer. When Janice asked to see the evidence, she
was denied.
Once Janice had been
designated to the hole, she was denied her furlough, admission to the half-way
house, or an ankle bracelet monitor so she could be released to work. She has been refused all visitors, including
her husband, and refuse to allow him to put money on her books. They have decided not to drop the assault
charge, and still have not shown evidence of her misconduct.
I don’t believe
Janice was lying. She was candid about
her theft and about pushing the girl.
She was a victim of the sociopath society.
When We’ve All Gone
Through the Door
The sociopath feels
no guilt, no remorse, has no conscience.
Two very tragic homicides followed closely on each other this last
winter. One was a young barrister of a
drive through coffee shop, the other involved a young airman on leave. The barrister was abducted from her place of
work; the video cameras proved this, while the airman’s where about’s were
uncertain for several days. In both
cases, it was weeks before their bodies were found.
The fathers of the
barrister and the airman recently went out to drink together. Understandably, they were inconsolable. Late in the evening, an employee of the bar,
noticing the barrister’s father was
about to get into his truck inebriated, offered to call a cab. The bereaved man told the employee to get
away from his truck or meet his 1911, which was assumed to refer to a family of
.45 caliber pistols. The bar employee
called the police stating the two men had left drunk, but that he could not
stop them because he feared for his life.
This was in compliance with a law that states those serving alcohol must
not allow a person to leave their premises and drive drunk unless they fear for
their lives.
The police entered
the premises of the barrister’s father, where they found both men. The barrister’s father was charged with a
DUI, even though he was home by then and there had been no mishaps on the
highway. He was charged with assault on
an officer for refusing to take a breath test.
He was charged with misconduct with a firearm after a search of his
vehicle uncovered a 1911 Ruger in his console that he had not pulled out and
had not used. His 2012 truck was
impounded and he was placed under $4,000 bail, along with a $2,000 appearance
bond and a $2,000 performance bond. In a
kinder era, there would have been more understanding for the grieving man, but
this is the year of the letter of the law and the law is carried out without
guilt, remorse or conscience.
The sociopath has a
limited range of emotions. A person in
prison learns to behave pleasantly, regardless of personal feelings. She must show no anger, no disappointment, no
impatience, no tears. She learns strict
obedience to the rules no matter how unfair they might seem. She learns not to anticipate. You do not anticipate your phone call or a
visit because they can be taken away from you.
You learn not to anticipate your release date as it can fill you with
too much longing, which invites other strong emotions. The jails have their own time schedule,
separate from the courts. Some girls
were kept as many as three days after their release was ordered, while the
jails went through their own system of paperwork. During that time period, they did not dare to
appear anything except pleasant and co-operative, or they could be charged with
another infraction. It was several weeks
after I was released before I was able to deal with the full flood of normal
emotions again. Someone who has been
incarcerated for months or years is completely overwhelmed by her initial
release.
I asked myself many
times what the purpose was in this revolving door justice, which rarely gave a
great deal of formal time behind bars but that usually gave long months and
even years of probation or parole.
Obviously, there is a high profit making mechanism involved. Your taxes pay for the burgeoning police
force, justified by the number of “necessary” arrests, and for the
administration of the court system. The
inmate never gets out of jail free. Even
if she has paid no bail or bonds, she must pay for court costs, the $250 an
hour public defender and filing fees.
Nearly every inmate is ordered to take anger management classes, drug
counseling or both. These also come out
of the inmate’s pockets.
There is also the
conditioning to obedience, to compliance without question. This too became obvious during my stay, yet
it wasn’t until I read the standard terms of probation and parole, applied to
all released inmates that I began to see a far more sinister reason for the
revolving door. While you are serving
your probation or parole, you may not vote, take part in elections or serve on
a jury. For as long as you have a felony
record, this part remains. While you are
on probation or parole, you may not own a firearm or any blade over three
inches long, with the exception of kitchen knives. You may not even own a machete for cutting
down brush. While you are on probation
or parole, you may not spend more than 24 hours away from your home. Your travel is restricted to a one hundred
mile radius of your home. You may not
consort with others convicted of a felon, not even family members. The police may come at any time to your home
without a warrant and search it, or search your person at any time without
cause. If you are in the company of
someone who is arrested, you will be arrested, too. By creating a revolving door of a populace
charged with felonies, every single one of our rights can be removed without
ever once tampering with any aspect of the Constitutional amendments. The United States places more people behind
bars than any country in the world, and this is why. It’s not so much that we are apathetic. It’s that we are learning to become
sociopaths, with no strong connections to each other, no normal emotional
range, no self-determination as to right and wrong and complete acceptance that
brutality is okay as long as exercised within the legal confines of the law.